


Unmapped

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Sherlock is conducting an experiment in kissing, Very intimate kissing, anal kiss, christmas day, cock kiss, saucy kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:35:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock wishes to explore more about his desires. To this end, he conducts a kissing experiment in the afternoon of Christmas Day. John is all for experiments of this nature. They are going to learn a thing or two together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmapped

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [缺失的数据](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2535917) by [shawnordaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shawnordaisy/pseuds/shawnordaisy)



> I didn't really mean to write a second Xmas fic for the boys of this verse, but the idea was persistent and I didn't want to wait.

Sherlock’s attendance at Mrs Hudson’s flat for Christmas lunch went longer than either John or Mrs Hudson had expected. Sherlock had, in fact, been in a rare good humour. He had played his violin. He had actually eaten a modicum of roast chicken, ingested a roast potato and a glazed parsnip, though he’d refused point blank to eat sprouts and was very insistent – with a meaningful lift of the eyebrow – that John also resist that dubious treat – and then polished off no less than four fruit mince pies, two of which he’d smeared with brandy butter. 

Sherlock had kissed Mrs Hudson’s brow and wished her the best of the season, and even thanked her quite graciously for the gift of a comedy skeleton that danced in response to sounds (to whit, Sherlock’s violin playing, and also John’s giggling) before declaring he had an experiment to be getting on with and departing.

He paused at the door long enough to give John a piercing look. “I need your assistance with this experiment, John,” he said sternly, “Five minutes.”

John had rather hoped to spend the afternoon lying on the sofa with his head in Sherlock’s lap while Sherlock mercilessly critiqued all the Christmas specials, and wondered if Sherlock planned to blow up their little Christmas tree instead.

“You’d best be off, dear,” said Mrs Hudson, very understanding, “He may need you for something important.”

“Hmph,” said John, “Last time he said I was vital for an experiment, he had me standing there for an hour and a half holding a set of jump leads that he finally remembered to tell me he didn’t actually need and why hadn’t I made him a cup of tea?”

Mrs Hudson tut-tutted sympathetically. “He does get engrossed, doesn’t he?" 

John knew he was not going to get any more sympathy than that. He bent to kiss Mrs Hudson’s cheek. “Well, Merry Christmas, then. Thank you for the slippers.” The bright blue sheepskin slippers that Sherlock had rolled his eyes over, before opening the dancing skeleton.

‘I’m planning on a nap and the Downton Abbey Christmas special myself. Have fun.”

“I’ll be happy if we don’t set fire to the kitchen again.”

She just laughed and gave him a tin of fruit mince pies to take upstairs.

When John got to the flat, the table was not set up, as he’d expected, with scientific paraphernalia. Instead, there was a faint humidity in the air. _He’s had a shower._

_Interesting._

John put the tin of pies down and walked down the corridor to their bedroom. The door was ajar. He pushed it slowly open.

There on the bed was Sherlock Holmes, stark naked, skin flushed pink from a warm and apparently very thorough shower. His hand were folded behind his head, his curls were damp from steam, and his legs were stretched out. He wriggled his toes.

“I was reminded this morning,” said Sherlock, “That I am still cataloguing the things that I like.”

“I see,” said John, which was clearly code for _oh my god I like everything I se_ e.

“I thought I would be more scientific about it.”

“Go on.”

“I like it when you bathe me.”

“I like that too. Love it.”

“I like it when you massage my hands.”

“Yeah,” breathed John.

“Sucking the toes is very pleasant for short periods.”

“It is,” agreed John.

“And I like kissing yours.”

“Mmm.”

“The singing… I’d like to work on your repertoire.”

“Sher-lock bright and beau-ti-ful,” sang John obligingly, “De-tec-tive Snug-gle-bum…”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and John laughed and fell silent.

“The pet names…”

“Honeybee. Sweetheart.”

Sherlock gave him the meltingest of smiles. “They can stay.”

“Christ, you are gorgeous. I love you.”

“I’m not sure where I like best to be kissed,” said Sherlock, “We need a more empirical approach.”

John grinned broadly.

“Just kissing,” said Sherlock sternly, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Just kissing,” promised John, because it was only the sternness that wasn’t real.

“If you care to…”

“Oh, yes _please,_ honeybee, I care to.”

“Then please…start at my toes and work up. There’s no hurry.”

“I don’t plan to hurry.”

“Good.”

John toed off his shoes, peeled off his socks and undid his shirt buttons. “I won’t fully undress,” he said, “I just need to be a bit more comfortable.”

Sherlock gave him a long, lingering gaze. “It’s warm enough for you to take your shirt off. I’d like that.” His gaze dropped. “Your jeans aren’t strictly required.”

Off they went as well. Dressed only in his red Christmas pants and an anticipatory smile, John sat on the end of the bed.

“You making notes?”

Sherlock tapped his own forehead with an elegant forefinger. “In the mind palace, John.”

“Feel free to share observations,” said John, and he lifted Sherlock’s right foot and kissed each of his toes in turn. Then the top of his foot. Then the ankle. He lifted it further and kissed the arch, as he’d done earlier that day, and then the ball of the foot, then the heel.

Sherlock sighed contentedly. 

John lifted Sherlock’s left foot and repeated the pattern. Toes and top, ankle and arch, ball and heel.

“Report?”

“Not too ticklish in the short term. Very pleasant. My feet are more sensitive than I had realised.”

“Okay.” John crouched on the end of the bed and leaned over to kiss a trail up Sherlock’s right shin, down along the muscle on one side, back up along the muscle on the other. He ended with a series of kisses on and around Sherlock’s knee. Then he kissed the same pattern over Sherlock’s left shin and knee.

“A little odd,” Sherlock reported, “But pleasant enough. For some reason, it’s nicer when you kiss my knees.”

“Hmm.” Now John kissed zig-zags up and down Sherlock’s long thighs, right then left. At the crease of leg and torso, John’s nose brushed against pubic hair and Sherlock’s warm but not aroused cock. The scent was musky, a strange combination of arousing and calming. John shifted his hips so that his semi-erection did not interfere with the experiment.

“Thighs,” said Sherlock with sleepy contentment, “Definitely that can stay.”

John paused and the crux of Sherlock’s thighs.

“Go ahead,” said Sherlock, “But don’t lick or suck.”

So John carefully kissed the base of Sherlock’s cock, and down the shaft, and the wonderful velvet softness of the head. He lifted Sherlock’s dick gently to kiss the underside as well, and to place soft, sweet kisses on his balls.

“Ticklish,” said Sherlock.

John gently unhanded his lover.

“But…” said Sherlock, his breathing gone heavy.

“Yes?”

“Would you…?”

“Tell me, baby.”

“Kiss… the glans. Again.”

John kissed the glans again, then licked a smear of clear stickiness from his lower lip.

“I shall file that away,” said Sherlock breathily, “For further investigation. Please continue.”

John kissed the pale skin above the thatch of dark pubic hair, across Sherlock’s abdomen and over his navel. He kissed Sherlock’s hips, and the burn scar, and the warm hollows and hard points of his pelvis. He kissed the lines of Sherlock’s ribs, and his sternum, and his pectorals and, firmly, his nipples, which pebbled attractively. Sherlock’s notes on all of these kisses ranged from ‘ _oddly comforting’_ to ‘ _oh, John, don’t stop’_ , except for the nipples which rated a slight whimper and a sharp intake of breath. John pulled back then.

“You okay, honeybumble?”

Sherlock opened one eye. “Honeybumble?”

“I’m conducting my own series of experiments,” said John with a grin.

“I… don’t mind honeybumble.”

“What are your thoughts on snugglebee?”

Sherlock’s shy-awkward-pleased grin answered that one right enough.

“Shall I stop, snugglebee?”

“Not yet,” said the snugglebee.

John resumed his role in the experiment, pressing warm lips to clavicle, to the hollow of Sherlock’s throat, across the tendons and muscles of the right shoulder, down Sherlock’s arms, his elbow, his forearms and wrists, his hand and each individual finger, the palm, back up to Sherlock’s armpit which, fresh washed and devoid of deodorant was warm and pleasant and John wondered if Sherlock would let him do that again.

“You like that,” said Sherlock.

“It feels very intimate,” said John thoughtfully, “And even with the shower, it smells… like you. Just. Nice. Like when I wake up in the night, even if you’re not in bed, the sheets smell like you. Like that.”

“That can stay.”

“Only if…”

“I like it, John. It can stay.”

So John kissed Sherlock’s other shoulder, his arm, his hands, nuzzled into his armpit and kissed the hollow under the tufts of hair. “Love you,” he murmured into the intimate heat.

“Love you too,” said Sherlock, “Continue. Please. If you would like to.”

And so John kissed Sherlock’s throat, and his chin and ears and cheeks and nose and forehead and temple and lips, and the little dip above that cupid’s bow, and the other below Sherlock’s full lower lip. He kissed Sherlock’s lips, and again and again and again for quite some time.

“I have already determined,” said Sherlock between kisses he made no attempt to stop, “That I like being kissed on the lips.”

John grinned and kissed Sherlock’s head through his curls. All over.

“Enough?” he asked.

“No,” said Sherlock, and languidly rolled over to present his back.

John kissed Sherlock’s scalp underneath those curls, more thoroughly perhaps than was required, and Sherlock thought it was all right, not half as good as being kissed on his thighs, but there was a quality to the way John pressed his mouth there that he knew was not about this experiment, but about nightmare visions, hair matted in blood, a vision Sherlock still hoped to learn how to erase, but he felt John’s mouth kiss hard, then soft, then move to the nape of Sherlock’s neck, around to the top of his ears, and John’s soft voice breathing over him: “Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming back.”

The moment passed, though, as John resumed the trail. Across Sherlock’s shoulders, down the knobs of his spine. Soft kisses to scars and to muscle, to dips and rises.

Sherlock’s scientific notes were still shifting between cohesive ‘I like that’ and incoherent sighs and ‘yes, oh, John, ah, there…”

At the rise of his backside, John kissed the dimple at his sacrum, each plump cheek. He hesitated and breathed over the crease between them.

“Don’t worry about that, John,” said Sherlock, “You don’t like…”

“I’m not that keen on anything going _in_ ,” John clarified, “But if you’d like me to, I’ll try.”

Sherlock was silent so long that John resumed kissing on the downward slope of pale skin, towards the top of Sherlock’s thighs, when Sherlock said: “I find myself curious. I washed thoroughly, of course. I’m perfectly clean.”

“Okay. Only if you want to.”

“Only if _you_ want to.”

John took a breath. “I’ll try. We’ll see.”

He stroked Sherlock’s lovely arse  first, then slipped his thumbs against the soft curves, parted them. Kissed just inside the fold on the left, then the right.

“Okay?” he murmured.

“ ** _John_**.” Hoarse and breathless.

Still careful and gentle, John bent down and placed a single soft, warm kiss over the puckered flesh, clean and fresh as the rest of Sherlock. It was the single most outrageous kiss he’d ever given anyone.

Sherlock was panting. John withdrew his mouth, his hands, and waited, not touching.

“That… that…”

John grew concerned.  “What do you need, baby? Should I….?”

“Sssh, John. Ssssh.”

John fell silent and waited for Sherlock to process the data.

“Intense,” is what Sherlock said at last. “Intimate. Indecent.”

“Ah…”

“No, I mean… it’s…” Sherlock swallowed. “I don’t know about that one. What did you think?”

“Intense. Intimate. Indecent.”

“You loved it.”

“That’s immaterial.”

“It is,” agreed Sherlock, “But it’s there with kissing my cock for further study.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I liked it the first time you kissed my cock. In Manchester. It became too intense after that, but… there is potential. Perhaps.”

“That’s okay, dumpling.”

“Dumpling?”

John looked at the mouth-watering rise of Sherlock’s beautiful, pale backside and kept his mouth shut.

“You want to kiss my arse again.”

“True,” said John, because lying to Sherlock was always pointless.

“All right,” said Sherlock, “I liked that. You may resume.”

John snorted a giggle at the faux-imperious tone, so at odds with having one’s perfect bottom kissed by one’s middle-aged sweetheart. Then he kissed each bare, plump cheek and moved down.

The top of the right thigh, around the sides of the inner thigh and down to the back of Sherlock’s knee, which elicited a happy sigh and a wriggle which, from this angle, was downright perfection. The same result occurred with the kissing of the left thigh and the back of the knee.

“Yes,” murmured Sherlock.

The mapping continued down each of Sherlock’s lean calves, to each Achilles tendon.

By the end of it all, Sherlock was a boneless puddle on the bed.

John stretched out alongside Sherlock, face close to Sherlock’s smiling face on the pillow.

“I’d like to kiss your mouth again now,” said John, “But since I’ve been kissing your…”

“I’m clean,” said Sherlock muzzily, “Kiss me anyway.”

John kissed him anyway.

“You taste like Christmas sherry,” said Sherlock.

“I’m pretty sure that’s the result of Mrs Hudson’s Christmas pudding and not…”

“John,” said Sherlock in a warning tone, and John laughed.

“Any results from the experiment yet?” he asked.

“I like being kissed,” said Sherlock, “Everywhere, to greater and lesser degrees, but there is no place I do not like being kissed by you.”

“Excellent. But do you know what I think?”

“I do, John.”

John laughed again. “Well, do you concur?”

“Oh yes,” breathed Sherlock, “We should definitely test the results by conducting the experiment again tomorrow.”

“Same parameters?” said John, all seriousness.

“Yes,” agreed Sherlock, “Those pants, too. Your arse looks good in them.”

“If you get the mood to reverse the experiment,” said John, “Once you’ve got your responses down as a baseline, I'm game to offer up my body in the name of science…”

“What do you think I’m planning to do with New Year’s Day?” asked Sherlock.

“Genius,” said John, pulling blankets up over the pair of them.

“True,” said Sherlock, smiling, and fell into a contented doze.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Unmapped [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745141) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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